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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29727057">Musings on my Henshin</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldenAbyss/pseuds/GoldenAbyss'>GoldenAbyss</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Kamen Rider - All Media Types, Kamen Rider Ex-Aid, Kamen Rider Kabuto, Kamen Rider Zero-One, Kamen Rider Zi-O</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 19:41:13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>785</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29727057</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldenAbyss/pseuds/GoldenAbyss</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of short POV pieces from different Kamen Riders across the franchise.<br/>The show emphasises how becoming a hero looks but I want to dive into how it feels to transform and to fight.</p><p>Mostly angst and mental illness, some hope and fluff.</p><p>Consider yourself spoiler-warned for every KR series.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Lazer - Kiriya Kujo (Bugster)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I don’t know why I still use the Gamer Driver to transform, I don’t need it anymore. Being a Kamen Rider is hardcoded into me. I’m no less Bakusou Bike than the Motors Bugster but the doctors think I’m worth saving, that my life means something.</p><p>Hypocrites. They’ve killed so many Bugsters. Motors, Graphite, Lovelica, Gamedeus. But for some reason they think some of us are worth keeping around.<br/>Me, Kuroto, Parad, Poppy.<br/>What makes us special?</p><p>Don’t get me wrong, I have no love for the bugster virus. But they're still alive, they can think for themselves. They’re incomplete but that doesn’t make them inanimate. Yet we mow through them without any regard, then spare the real monsters like Masamune. Is it because he has a human face? A heart that beats? I don’t. I haven’t for a long time now. But they let me ‘live’.</p><p>I think I still use the Gamer Driver to reject that reality. It makes me human again, not another one of those monsters. It makes me feel like another life to continue, not something they spare for convenience.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Jin - Burning Falcon (Post-series)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>You wanna know a secret?<br/>I haven’t forgiven Horobi for making me a Kamen Rider.</p><p>My data has been altered a lot. The Ark, Hiden, ZAIA, and Horobi have all had their hands in my code, but I’ve come out the other end as the same Jin. Except that first time.<br/>That first time, when he strapped the ForceRiser to me, it took away something, it broke a part of me I don’t think I can get back. A certain innocence.</p><p>It’s not that I want to go back. I was a child playing at war. I had killed before and I would kill again. But I was naive, I was learning to love among the hate. Horobi was my father and he took childhood away from me. Zero-One… Aruto. He helped me relearn trust, even after killing me. I think Horobi is learning it too now. Slowly.</p><p>That’s why I don’t use the ForceRiser anymore. I’m scared I’ll break again.<br/>I didn’t used to know fear. I don’t want to now but I need to. I can’t protect what I love unless I’m scared to lose it.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Woz - Black Woz</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>My goal in this life is to aide My Overlord.<br/>But when I activate the Miridewatch, a vast nexus of possibilities open up before me.<br/>I see every potential. Thousands of Kamen Riders who may never be. Parallel worlds where things are different. A path to victory, and endless paths to defeat.<br/>I wonder, just for a moment, if I any path leads to my kingship.<br/>And then the driver projects my armour. It’s made of these endless potentials, but I am made blind to them once more. I transform and return to the present, to this reality where I am Woz.<br/>Rejoice! For I am here.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Ex-Aid - Emu Hojo (Early series)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I remember a psychiatrist student telling me about something in med school. “Depersonalisation” is what he called it. The feeling that you’re not in your body. You're there, but so far away, like you’re controlling a video game character instead of your body.<br/>The second the Mighty Action X gashat is plugged in I feel stronger, but distant. I can’t do a backflip, but Ex-Aid can. So I tell it to, and I do. Like pressing a button.</p><p>Sometimes I wonder if I’m a hero, or if the Gamer Driver is the one doing the real work.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Ark-One - Aruto Hiden</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Every joke I’ve ever told. Silence.<br/>The Ark screams with all the tortured rage of a drowning animal, but all I feel is the silence of every joke no one laughed at.<br/>Izu played along. Even if she couldn’t laugh, she understood what I meant. She encouraged me.<br/>And now she’s gone. Now there’s only silence.<br/>Only screams which push my every movement closer towards the vengeance that is rightfully mine.<br/>Horobi says he doesn’t feel. He could never understand me.<br/>If he can’t laugh... I’ll teach him to scream instead.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Kabuto - Tendou Souji</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Grandmother once said this:<br/>
"The joy of running comes only from the understanding of walking."</p><p>I am the man who walks the path of heaven. Yet, when I become Kabuto I want only to run. I can blaze the trails of heaven, race down the path to that promised land.<br/>
But I don't. I walk the path.</p><p>If I run then I may lose my way, I may find myself merely wearing <em>The Red Shoes</em> rather than owning them. I am greater than that. I have resisted for years. For Hiyori. For Tsurugi. For my dark self.</p><p>I am the man who walks the path of heaven, ruler of all. Kabuto is my tool, not my truth.</p>
  </div></div>
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